Minelab CTX 3030 Detecting Forum

Anyone who has seen my posts in my original "CTX lower rods thread" knows that over the past several weeks, my thoughts have morphed from asking about lower rod options, to considering the possibility of possibly being able to build my own (and getting some great suggestions), to pursuing those possibilities, to finally reaching a decision to try to see if I can't build some really nice, high-quality carbon-fiber lower rods for the CTX.

Well, I'm happy to say that it has worked! After many hours of researching materials, and adhesives, and suppliers/fabricators, and figuring out how and where to acquire all the parts and pieces and such, I now have my first working prototype completed and functional, with parts on the way to build one more for myself, and several for friends who also are interested and want some. One thing I am really happy with, is the opening for the coil wire. Instead of having to insert the coil wire "underneath" the rod, as on the Minelab rods, on this design the coil wire runs into the SIDE of that lower "clevis/yoke." This puts less strain/bend in the coil wire, which should be better for coil life, in the long run.

I have found that it's less expensive than I thought it might be to make a really high-quality, nice-looking rod that I am really pleased with, and so my initial objective has been satisfied -- which was to find a way to have extra rods for my extra coils, without paying $175 per, for Minelab-brand rods. Now, the next step will be to produce several, for my interested friends.

Here are some pictures; the parts I have on the way to build additional rods are from the same suppliers which produced the parts for the "prototype" rod, so I am confident that I have all the "kinks" worked out. This has been fun, and I'm looking forward to building more of them.

Also, while on the subject of improving lower rods, I finally got around to padding the edge of my factory rod.

I used an auto door edge guard that slips over the edge and is held on by a glue strip as well. I got this one from Amazon:

Basically I measured roughly and cut a piece. You get several feet of it and all you need is a few inches.
Then I fit it in place, adjusted length and position, and pulled up one end enough to start pulling the paper off the glue.
With it still in place I was able to pull the tape off without it shifting. Lastly I put a hair drier to it to help it conform to the corners permanently.
This is what it looks like completed. Note the inside edge that is not visible is longer than the edge you see, so it offers plenty of protection for the coil cable.